Log Horizon: Arise From the Ashes
by ChaoticCrazy
Summary: Of the many players caught in the Apocalypse, a member of the US Army has the unfortunate nature to be thrust into the game, and gets to find that maybe in this world many would call Hell, their may just be heroes after all, and that for many of them to arrive they must fall and arise again, like phoenix's of yore. Rated M for violence, language, possible sexual material.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Awakening

The sounds of birds chirping and the wind blowing past my face stirred me, opening my eyes slowly as I wondered what happened. One minute I had just finished my time on duty in Okinawa, getting onto my computer and logging onto Elder Tale, the next minute I'm waking up to a place that certainly did not feel like an enlisted living quarters building.

I felt grass underneath me, and looking around I could see a lot of tree's. Slowly getting up I could feel my back was stiff, and proceeded to crack it as I placed both my hands against the small of my back and pushed, still slightly groggy

The entire forest could get a loud series of cracks as my back loosened up, but at that point I was more alert focused on the fact that I didn't feel my tee shirt against my back, and while I may be decently strong, I certainly did not have the strength to crack my entire spine in one go, and certainly not enough to what felt like something very solid and heavy on my back.

Looking down, I noticed a unique set of armor, reminiscent of Japanese tosei-gusoku battle armor, sets of metal strips along the sides and arms combined with a seamless breastplate and a set of iron strips along the waist and hips. The dull metal armor was marked with multiple yellow silk cords tying a lot of the pieces together, primarily all the smaller strips of metal together as well as keeping the breastplate secured to my chest.

Looking at my hands they felt larger than what I was used to, and the metal gauntlets covering them did nothing to ease my surprise. Reaching over my back my head hit something on my head, and I yanked it off only to nearly drop the item, a helmet, as what looked like a golden dragon's skull stared into the depths of my soul.

The puzzles pieces finally starting to click in my head, I reached back once more and pulled the large item off my back, before feeling my arm slide naturally into a pair of leather straps on it, before hefting what amounted to be a large shield on my right arm. Looking down at the final piece of the puzzle, I nearly gave a chuckle as, with much less surprise and fanfare, a somewhat normal looking sword hung on my right hip.

"Am I...in Elder Tale?"

Looking up and around, my eye caught a glimpse of something in front of me, and as I tried to get a better view of it it came into focus, a menu popping up in front of me. Reading it, I had to bite my tongue as I started to realize what I had fallen into. In plain, blunt terms, the menu stated,

Verdha

Race: Wolf Fang

Class: Guardian Lvl 90

Amulet of Warriors

Samurai Lvl 28

HP: 14007

MP: 7430

Guild: Unaffiliated

Looking further up I noticed a faint outline of a map, which suddenly came into focus as I studied it. It gave a blip in the center, presumably myself if it followed the game, and showed that I was a few miles north of Akihabara, and apparently only a few dozen meters from the nearest path towards the city.

' _Something is terribly wrong,'_ I thought, since I knew that it was definitely not normal for real people to be put into a video game. There was a reason I stayed away from those virtual reality headsets that came out recently, especially with that international fiasco of a couple thousand players trapped inside a game, what was it...Sword Fight Online, or something like that? I had kept to the old school PC, and certainly was enjoying a game that wasn't entirely based around who could hit who with a sword harder. ' _I have to find answers.'_

Placing the helmet back on my head, I felt something odd, and upon touching it again realized I had a bun on the back of my head. He was used to a short buzz-cut, which now made him feel...odd, out of place. Well, as if the medieval armor and weapons wasn't off-putting enough as it was.

Turning towards the path, my weathered iron boots more fit for a European knight crunched on the ground, I realized that there was plenty of brush, and it would impede my progress if I didn't do something about it. Deciding mobility would be better, I unslung the shield and stowed it across my back again before pulling out my sword. A rather interesting blade I had earned from a rather difficult raid back in the Land of Wen, it was designed off a bastard sword, with a blade of roughly twenty eight inches in length, significantly shorter than a longsword, but a good six inches longer than any short sword of comparable origins, with a grip and pommel that was roughly the same size as a longswords. The blade looked rather normal, save for some exotic inscriptions carved into the blood channel of the blade, which if he remembered correctly in the flavor text was written in Alvish. As the blade exited the sheath the blood channel glowed a faint red, akin to the color of hot coals in a forge, and in the dead silence of the woods I could faintly hear a crackling sound that sounded just like the image in his mind's eye of such an event.

With a slash I cut into a branch, my strength proving much more than I was expecting as I cleaved the branch off and over swung, tearing into the center of the bush and slicing it jaggedly in two. Removing the blade from the plant, the bush keeled over to the side, out of the way, a faint tinge of smoke coming from the destroyed parts of the brush. I stared in shock at the hand wielding the sword before I realized that I had power.

' _And with great power comes great...care.'_ I thought, cutting myself off from saying something stupid and cheesy. Course being cheesy isn't especially bad, but it wasn't one of those moments where I wanted it to be cheesy.

Cutting and chopping away, it took me only a few minutes to get through the brush, carving a trail of destruction behind me as the brush and bushes were felled in a few strokes apiece.

Reaching the trail, I wiped the blade one the cloth leg of my armor, before stowing the weapon. Looking around, it felt surreal that the trail I was on was the same one my avatar traveled on for the past few months. The Yamato server was new to me when I was given my orders to report to Okinawa, but I had gotten familiarized with it over the course of a couple months, though still nowhere near as thoroughly as the trails I had blazed over in the Land of Wen.

Looking at my map, I noted that a simple compass figure on the top pointed north, and so I rotated myself to face the southern direction of the trail, towards Akihabara. Knowing my luck, it would take me a few hours to get there, which meant in all this armor I would most likely be miserable and hungry by the time I got into town.

"Well, this is gonna be a helluva trip." I muttered. "Least it's better than getting chewed out by Sergeant Sprucemyer."

He felt his spine give a chill, the wide reach of the NCO's intimidation even touching him here in the virtual realm of warriors and monsters, sorcerers and magic, and tales of lore and adventure.

 **Just a note, if anyone wonders why he has two classes, it will be explained in a later chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Hard Contact

Things were getting worse by the minute. Not exactly for me physically, but things were still getting worse. I had walked down the path for a good fifteen minutes before pulling up my friends list. A few of my friends back home were online, and I tried to contact them, but all I got was static. Combined with the fact that I knew I was on a separate server from them, my chances of getting in contact with them was slim to nil. Second, I found out the food sucked.

Getting a little hungry due to the fact that I had just gotten off my shift before getting on my computer and logging into the game, I had found out how to open the menu system in front of me and found some food to fill my stomach. Seeing a chicken leg pop up on my list of food items I tapped it immediately and watched a cooked chicken leg fill my right hand.

Opening my mouth I bit down on it expecting the delicious juices of cooked chicken fill my mouth, before I spat it out with a sound of total disgust as it tasted horrible, comparable to an uncooked MRE if their could be anything to compare it to.

Staring at the horrible excuse for grub in my hand I threw it away without a second thought and kept trudging along, now mildly pissed at the fact that I would have to put up with terrible food for God knows how long. And right when things couldn't seem to get any worse, it did.

The map lit up as three red dots popped up roughly twenty meters ahead and just off to the side of the road.

"Well fucking great, as if the food wasn't bad enough, I get to go kill some monsters on an empty stomach." Grouchy, and surprisingly thrilled at the aspect of taking on some monsters to vent my frustration out on, my large shield sliding onto my lower arm and hand almost naturally as I drew my blade, the steel glinting in the scattered afternoon light as the tree's around me provided some shade.

The disgusting smell my nose picked up gave them away first before anything else. The red eyes and the glint of blades gave me enough notice to react to them as well. A spear got thrown at me and I raised my shield, an adrenaline dump filling my body as the projectile slammed into the shield before bouncing off. Whether from my training or simple instinct, I had already yelled out "Contact front!", not even bothering to recall that I was all by myself.

Lowering my shield to survey my targets, I counted three goblins, all of them around level 25, and each of them looking most definitely real. It took my mind a moment to grasp the fact that what I was looking at was very well as real as myself, but by then they had already started to charge, spears and hand axes glinting evilly as they sprung forward, intent on taking a piece out of me, giving me the most terrible of screeches and growls as they seemed to take glee in joining the fight.

Spreading my legs shoulder width apart, I stared them down and brought my sword back and to the side, predicting who would reach me first and adjusting my strike accordingly as they came towards me. A thin layer of flames sprung to life along the length of the blade, the bastard sword ready to take another monster's life as one of them got ahead and sprang towards me spear raised for a downwards thrust.

Unfortunately it didn't get the strike it desired as the bastard sword swung in from the side, the last quarter of the blade slamming into the creature's side and getting a slash that went halfway across its body as it was flung to the side, nearly four fifths of its health points removed before the other two entered mortal combat.

I easily blocked the axe strike, letting the axe head get caught on the flat of my blade before I pushed the smaller fighter away from me, my shield taking a stab from a spear before I swung low and caught the beast in the legs, sweeping it off its feet and sending it crashing to the ground. With a growl I changed the grip on my blade so point the blade down and drove it into the monster's chest, the creature screaming in pain for a few moments before it shattered into a pile of digital data pieces that then faded away.

I then gave a grunt as I felt an object slam into my shoulder, looking over in time to feel a spear connect with the side of my helmet, knocking me astray as I swung wildly, catching the goblin in the leg and watching him also disappear in a display of data before I landed on my back on the path.

Whether it was instinct or training, I raised my shield in time to feel the axe dig into the carved iron. Before the goblin could pull it out to strike again, I rolled, taking the poor creature with me as I got on top, seeing part of the goblin sticking out from under the shield before I stabbed it with my sword, twisting the blade once I got it inside the monster in order to have it scream in pain before it ran out of health and blew up in a rain of data bits.

Slowly getting to my feet, I gave a sigh of relief as I looked around and was thankful that nothing else was around. Glancing at my stats, I gave a small intake of breath at seeing my health had gone down, even if it was only a little bit: 13,898 HP.

Sheathing my sword and bringing my gauntly over to feel over my shoulder, I withheld a gasp of pain as I felt a muscle twinge in agony. Feeling the area of pain, I could barely make out it was a small gap between the shoulder and the rest of my body. Bringing my hand back I could see a smear of blood on the gauntlet.

"So, looks like this place isn't just a game…" I whispered, realizing the stakes were higher. It may work like a game, but it was still real.

Checking my map for more intruders, and finding none, I slung my shield across my back and headed towards Akihabara again, going from a careful walk to a good jog, the only thing slowing me from sprinting being both my armor and my mind telling me that endurance was more important than speed if I wanted to get into a safe zone faster.

"I swear to god if I get out of this I'm going to be sitting back on a beach drinking a Dos Equis…" he muttered to himself, already thinking in his mind's eye that most of his platoon mates would be getting a kick out of his predicament if they were here, telling him that he should be on a beach picking up cute japanese girls in bathing suits rather than fighting for his life in a computer game. Then again, at least his chances of success with the latter were significantly higher and easier to calculate with basic arithmetic than the former.

"Why did I have to be the nerdy one of the bunch? Getting laid sounds so much easier to deal with than this." Vaulting over a log that had fallen on the path, and finally breaking into a clearing to catch a view of a large and what many would consider a ruined city, a smile graced his features.

Tapping the sides of his helmet the front portion of it slid up and backwards, the eyes and snout portion of the helmet raising themselves to rest on the lower portion of the horns and forehead of the skull-shaped piece of armor as Geoffrey squinted a little in the afternoon sunlight.

"Though I gotta admit, I don't think I would ever say no to getting a view of a place like this."

And with that said he glanced over his shoulder one final time to make sure no monsters had pursued him before walking to the city, stretching his arms above him as he breathed in the fresh air and soaked in the low sounds of the hustle and bustle of a city full of players.

 **Hey guys, sorry for taking so long, I'm sort of building the story piece by piece, and suffice to say it may be a week or two between chapter uploads since I still need to fully think about how I want the plot to go, so hang in there for you guys that really want a lot of chapters coming out on this, especially since this is the first story I want to try and see through to the end.**


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